Sonar trainer



Dec 22, 1959 w, w. cARRUTHERs ETAL 2,918,650

SONAR TRAINER Original Filed Nov. '23, 1948 l I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I PHASE I SENSITIVE I DETECTOR 1 GE IIEIIAT QR I H 3 I g I i SIGNAL //59 GENERATOR 7 INVENTOR. I WALTER w CARRUTHERS United States Patent SONAR TRAINER Walter W. Carruthers, Los Angeles, and Claude L. Kirkpatrick, San Diego, Calif., assignors to the United .States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy Original application November 23, 1948, Serial No. 61,568. Divided and this application September 23, 1955, Serial No. 537,909

3 Claims. (Cl. 340-6) bearing of the target by listening, and then, after obtain-' mg specific orders from his commander, he direct a single special directional properties.

ing to the water-borne noises from other ships and for taking bearings on them. One type of such equipment includes an electromechanical transducer, or hydrophone, mounted outside the hull of the ship for responding to sounds in the water and for transmitting them as electric signals to the operators amplifier. The signal passes through a heterodyne circuit to produce audible sounds from supersonic frequencies in the range of 13 to 36 kilocycles per second. The operator listens to a band of frequencies about 3 kc. wide and has a tuning control for shifting this 3 kc. band to any part of the 13 to 36 kc. range.

The hydrophone is directional in that it receives sounds best from some one direction. It is this directional selectivity that enables the operator to find the bearing of a target surface ship. He does so by simply finding the direction in which the hydrophone must face to bring the noise of the target in loudest. One characteristic of equipment of this type is that a transducer that has a sharp directional selectivity will also show extra lobes in I its directivity pattern. That is, there will be several separate directions in which the hydrophone shows good sensitivity.

Good design keeps the sensitivities of the unwanted lobes lower than that of the forward lobe but cannot eliminate them. Thus in one type of transducer a side lobe, sensitive enough to be noticeable, appears about 30 to each side of the main lobe and another appears 180 from it. It is necessary that the operator be alert to these difliculties and that he be skilled in the operating procedures that will prevent them from leading him into errors.

The sharpness of the directional sensitivity of a transducer is in general greater for high frequency sounds. Consequently the operator can obtain a sharper indication of target bearing if he listens, at say 33 kc. rather than 15 kc.

Certain types of equipment are provided with sensitive devices for indicating whether the operator has his hydrophone facing slightly to the right or left of the source of a particular underwater noise. When properly used such aids materially increase the accuracy of the bearing measurements.

Listening procedures thus will enable a submariner to determine the bearing of a target-surface-ship but will not show its range, or distance, from the submarine. Submarines may also be equipped with echo-ranging equipment which consists of an apparatus for sending sound circuits.

pulses, or pings, into the water and for determining the; time required for their echos to return from the target.

But, in warfare it is undesirable for a submarine to send out echo-ranging pings because they may be heard by other ships. One compromise of this difliculty requires that the submarine sound-operator first determine the ping toward that bearing to determine the range. g

It is an object of the present invention to provide equipment for drilling sound operators in the procedures for. -meeting these specific problems. i l

It is a further object of the present invention to provide Z an underwater listening apparatus suitable for use with simulating echo-ranging equipment.

It is a further object to Further objects include the provision of improved equipment for training soundoperators,- and the proapparatus for the purposes vision of improved electrical described.

These and other objects and advantages will'appear from the following description of one specific embo'diment of the invention. In the drawings:

Figs. 1 and 2 are diagrams for showing a type of underwater listening device, and for explaining its operation.

Fig. 3 is a diagram of apparatus of the present invention for simulating the operation of the apparatus of i Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is a circuit diagram for explaining-the operation of the system of Fig. 3. 1

A hydrophone, or underwater type of'electrornechani cal transducer, generally designated bynumeral130; as shown in Fig, 1, comprises two identical and symmetri 'cally-arranged halves 132 and 134 having effective -centers at 136 and 138, and having separate electric-output, The whole hydrophone rotates about a vertical axis 140.

This divided construction gives the hydrophone special directional properties. The hydrophone is'said to face in the direction of the arrow 142. .Consider a plane sound wave, generated by simulating means described in or more advanced, portion of the sound wave than is.

application, Serial No. 61,568, filed November 23, 1948, indicated by the parallel rays 144 and 146,-approaching-l thehydrophone from a direction slightly to ther'ight of the direction in which the hydrophone is'facing. .,A line perpendicular to these rays (called a wave front) connects points such as 152 and 154 that have theisame I phase. vBecause the hydrophone as indicated in Fig.

1 does not directly face the oncoming wave, each wave .front reaches point 136 earlier than it reaches point 138 and consequently the voltages generated in the two halves! of the hydrophone differ in phase by an angle determined by the distance 156 comparedto the wave length of. the

sound. The output from 134 has the so-called earlier phase because at any instantit is responding to an earlier,

the half 132.

The electrical outputs from the halves 132 and 134 of the hydrophone, or transducer 130, are resolved into sum and difference signals by similar transformers 160-- and 162 which constitute part of a receiver 164. Because the outputs of 132 and 134 are equal in magnitude and dilfer only in phase, the sum and difference voltages will always be separated 90 in phase. Thus, in Fig. 2, vec-. tors 133 and represent the voltage outputs from the halves 132 and 134 respectively, and vector 139 is their sum. Vector 137 is drawn in to indicate the negative of vector 135. Vector 141 is the sum of vectors 133 and *6;

137 and therefore the difference of vectors 133and 135. It is perpendicular to vector 139. The receiver 164 in- Patented Dec. 22, 1959 provide a receiver having cludes a phase-sensitivedetector 192 as indicated, in Fig. 3 that responds to these. quadrature voltages for actuating an indicator 194 that shows accurately whether thehya drophone 130 isfacing slightly to the right or left of thesource of sound. I

The present invention provides a realisticoperation of I such a receiverwithout making any changes. in the re- ,ceiver itself, and without having to provide equal, out-ofphase signals. Referring now to' Fig. 3, 21 search mech-.

anism 170 which receives target signals from signal generator 169, includes a targetcoil 172 carried on a rotatable arm 174 and energized by a pair, of'induction coils 176 and 178 which are similar to coils52 and 62 'of the device described in the aforementioned application. A pair of pickup "coils 180and 182 shown in a pictorial schematic and representative of the halves 132 and 134,1ie next to each other and are carired by am 184 to pass near target 'coil 172. The voltages induced in coils 180 and .182 produce currents that flow out through collectorv rings 186 to the transformers 160 and 162. of receiver 164'. These transformersdrive the control gridsof similar vacuum tubes 188 and 190.

' mmilfill the arms 174 and,184i are parallel so that the tarconstruction, at 7000' cyclescper second (a suitable signal frequency for the equipment), coils 180 and 182 each had a resistanceof 50 ohms and an inductance of 5 millihenrys and therefore'an impedance of 50+j220. M5, the mutualinductance between coils 180 and 182 was 2.8 mil- ,lihenrys so that it provided a coupling impedance of i125 ohms. Each h'alf'of transformer 160 had an im- 7 pedance. of about 20+jl00 ohms, and the transformer get-simulating coil 172 lies'close to, but equidistant from pieleupcoils 180 and 182,.it induces voltages in those coils that are equal in both; phase and magnitude. This situation simulates the condition in which the hydrophone 130 of Fig. 1 faces thesource of sound. When the coils 172, 180 and182 are moved slightly away from this symmetrical on-target position, the voltage induced in one coil reduces in magnitude relative to the other but the two voltages maintain substantially the same phase. However.theconstants ofthe various circuits are irr Fig. 4, where the meshes are numbers '1, 2, 3 and 4.

. In this system the ratio of the currents in meshes 3 and 4 is t where: V

I andl ,=mesh currents in meshes 3 and 4- respectively B self impedance of mesh 3, that is the reciprocal of the ratio of the current in that mesh to the voltage induced by it in that same mesh B =selfimpedance of mesh 4 B 4= -B ==mutual impedance of meshes 3+4, that isthe reciprocal of the ratio of the current in one mesh to the voltage induced by it in the other mesh M =mutua1 inductance between coils 172 and 180 in Fig'. 4

M =mutual inductance. between coils 172 and 182in mutual and self impedances of the two meshes 3. and 4 are. comparable. in magnitude and. different in phase (or power factor). Therefore as the ratio M M in the equation departs from unity, the ratio 1 /1 becomes complex. A complex value for this ratio means that the currents in meshes 3 and 4 in Fig. 4 differ in phase andso will actuate the indicator 194 of Fig. 3. For example in one specific Accordingly:

provideda coupling. impedance of i100 ohms. The impedance. of transformer '162'wasabout l2+j100: ohms.

B 4=B =62+j420 ohms :425 ohms at 82 B =B =12+j125 ohms =125 ohmsat96" The term target is not limited to enemy ships but includes any craft or other object the presence or location of which can. be determined ;by'means, of sound.

The term sensitivity lobe as applied to the; response pattern of a transducer'is theuphenomena of the response at sa'certain bearing being greater than at hearings to the right and left ofit, and includes not only the; so called main, or front, lobe but also the so called rear, or reciprocal, lobe andthe side lobes I I The invention is not. to be limitedtto'the details of'the I specific constructions herein shownand described, but should be limited onlyto the scopev of the appended claims.

We claim: 1., The combinationfwith a; signal receiver having two similar input circuits and means responsive to. the phase, I I

diflerence of two similar signals: applied to said circuits, of, a signal generator 01 generating two signal voltages of substantially the same phase but of variable relative amplitude, and circuit. means for applying said two signal voltages to said two circuits, said circuit means having self impedance and mutual impedances being coupled in. amannerthat the self. impedance of each circuit differs in phase from the mutual impedance that couples said circuits.

2. The combination with. a signal receiver having two,

coupled, input circuits and phase responsive means operable in response. to a phase-difference between two similar signals applied to said circuits, of,, means for generating a pair of in-phase, voltage-signals, means for varying the relative magnitudes thereof, and coupling means for applying said voltage-signals: to said input circuits, said input circuit having self impedances and said coupling; circuit havingmutual impedance, said self impedance of each of said input circuit differing in phase from the mutual impedance thatcouples said circuits whenever said two signalsare different in magnitude.

3. The. combination with a signal receiver having two similar input circuits and indicator means operable. in accordance with the phase-difference of two similar signals applied to said circuits, of, means for adapting said receiver to actuate said indicator-means in response to inphase signalscomprising, means for varying the relative voltages of two in-phase. signals, said input circuits having self impedances, coupling means having mutual impedances 'for. applying said two in-phase signals to said two input circuits and for coupling said two input circuits in a manner that the self impedance of each circuit differs in phase from the mutual impedance that couples said circuits. i

2,520,291 Anderson Aug. 29, 1950 2,751,689 Jones et al. June. 26, 1956 Barton Feb. 15, 1955 

